The researchers of this study sought to identify early predictors of psychiatric disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by analyzing language-based implicit markers of psychological processes. They analyzed trauma and control narratives provided by 163 individuals within 18 days of experiencing trauma and found that trauma narratives with fewer cognitive processing words, more death-related words, and more first-person singular pronouns predicted greater PTSD symptoms at 6 months. These language-based processing markers complemented self-report questionnaires of related processes, providing an effective tool for early forecasting of post-trauma adjustment.
